I was lucky enough to get to ARC read Lizzie Blackwood’s debut novel The Stars Will Be Our Ocean, and what a delight it was! Part sci-fi political thriller, part romance, this book was pure fun from start to finish. I’m only casually familiar with the Mass Effect series, but the influence was obvious from the start. And yet, the setting, characters and plot were all very different and refreshingly unique.

The story follows Jenna Kalandra, a human woman who has been classified as a lowly “blackstripe” by the fascist conservative government of Earth due to her bisexuality & noncomformity to traditional femininity. Accompanied by a large number of fellow blackstripes, she has been chosen as a cultural liaison for a diplomatic mission between Humanity and the Reshketh, a sharklike species who are the first sapient alien race to make contact with earth. But immediately, problems start to arise, and it becomes clear that someone behind the scenes is trying to sabotage this newly budding relationship between Humanity and the Reshketh. Saddled with the impossible task of solving the problem thanks to her cruel diplomat boss, Jenna seeks help from her adorable AI companion, Patches, as well as a slacker Reshketh guard named Tarek, who proves to be surprisingly helpful … and strangely irresistible to Jenna.

It has been a long time since I really devoured a book, but once I started this one, I finished it easily in only a few sittings. The pacing is superb, throwing the reader immediately into its setting and conflicts without any need for a long buildup, and moving at a nonstop speed that never drags. While there isn’t a lot of action until about 3/4ths through the book, the political entanglements of the Humans and Reshketh, the mystery of who or what is trying to sabotage the mission, the pressure for Jenna and her friends to stay one step ahead of disaster, and the unfolding relationship between Jenna and Tarek, were easily engrossing enough to keep me turning page after page until I was surprised by how much I’d devoured all at once. And once the heavy action does hit, WOW does it really hit! It was a shock delivered at the perfect moment, but it didn’t feel jarring—rather a much-needed shake-up to the status quo and a natural evolution of the plot.

The characters in this book are all either deeply lovable or deeply hateable (when they are supposed to be). Jenna and Tarek are both endearing characters in different ways, Jenna as the always-frazzled idealist who can be impressively badass when she needs to be, and Tarek as the apparently jaded, sarcastic slacker with a mysterious past who is deeply vulnerable and earnestly sweet underneath his armor. The way their romance evolves feels both slow and sweeping at the same time, the emotional connection between them electric and natural in spite of their obvious physical differences. Jenna is also accompanied by a crew of delightful friends who deserve a book all to themselves: Esti, the natural leader; Dani the overly-enthusiastic tech genius; and of course Patches the AI, who fittingly has a personality like a loyal puppy. I won’t say much about the other Reshketh characters, as they are deliberately hard to pin down for much of the story, but they are equally intriguing and well-written. Blackwood does a wonderful job of portraying the Reshketh as not merely exotic alien shark-people, but a fully-realized and complicated culture with flaws as deep as Humanity’s own … including their affinity for sometimes creating terrible cheesy art.

Overall, this book was a wonderful read, and I’d recommend it for any fans of dramatic sci-fi and/or steamy romances that may involve a bit of biting.